The Ranji Season was ON! and as usual people were joyfully ignoring it. To further suppress the Interest of Ranji Series a test Series was to be played between visiting West Indies and India . This series comes aftermath a perfect ODI series against England for India at home and this is the first series after the disastrous English Summer .Hoping to regain their Forgotten momentum , India and West Indies, after a good Bangladesh series are to cross swords. Not much of an head turner this series though Still of an international reckoning. India on the 1st day lost the toss and Windies were to bat…. India went into the match with an inexperienced bowling attack with two of the bowlers being debutants. U.Yadav and R.Ashwin making their debuts,P.Ojha making a come back , P.Kumar given rest, Z.Khan & M.Patel out due to injury…. Phew !! the bowling really was a weak one.The test which was supposed to have played 5days got over in 4 days(they got confused with the Ranji trophy?) and eventually India won . A day by day briefest rapping summary of the a rather brief match .

Day 1 – Ojha’s spin and Chander’s Ton

Day 2 – Ojha’s six pack ,Windies lose track,India starts well only to walk back

The tournament that nobody wanted and still staying the same way had at-last had a change in momentum and even though it was an very late momentum swing but still it is welcome. The west indies actually took a long time(3 matches) to realize that it was a second string side that was touring them and not the same team that lifted the trophy. and when they found it out India were already planning to play their 3rd string side. India already being wrapped up the series fielded some changes in their bowling armory and continued with their 2nd string batting line up(missing- shewag,sachin,gambhir,yuvi,dhoni). Raina after adding a feather to his cap by grasping his maiden series win won the toss yet again and with all the cliche’s happening around fielded again and restricted Windies to less than 250(actually 249) but with a little twiat of India ending up on the losing note this time around as sharma could not repeat his heroics again

The Windies once again had a poor start to the match batting first losing two quick wickets but opener simmons stayed a little longer this time saving his pride and there was another guy who was saving his pride and he is the tall and humungous Pollard after a failed IPL and a poor two matches played the savior role with an un pollard innings scoring 70 with less than a 100 strike rate.These heroics helped Windies score 249 their highest for this season setting a target of 250 in a turning pitch which was later claimed by martin as his backyard.

Then came the Indian openers and parthiv was as usual fluent and failed to convert his start and Tiwary was like a guy who came straight out of a horror movie poking outside off regularly and eventually got out(he would have been happy i think!). then the collapse started yet again as the previous match . parthiv returned back and much expected Badri also came back and kohli could do nothing after a decent time in the middle, rohit failed after a very promising start failing against martin , raina continued his poor form in foreign lands, Y.pathan went back faster than his shots used to be,Ashwin showed some prowess with the bat but could do very less considering the loss of wickets, praveen did not waste much energy and mishra and ishanth were formalities . martin spun it good as he took 4 wickets with kohli,rohit,and raina among his scalps . In the end India was bundled out in the 39th over for 146 and for the very first time Windies looked like a home team.

At-last Windies were showing class in the series and that is a good sign for the upcoming test series for the record India lost it’s very first match after the magical world cup finishing a 7 match streak. Martin who was adjudged the MoM was highly modest in his speech in which he told he never knows the word “Lose”. Man, he a west indian in the Sammy era don’t he knows that viv and clive have already retired and walsh and ambrose are writing columns and he sure has to come back to earth and play the next match.

For the very first time i’ve felt relieved that India lost. But still, gutted we should have done a white wash.

Chennai Super Kings in Chennai and whoever may be the opponent leave them bewildered and leaves them gasping for breath as they sweep past them to mark their victory. This is the scenario from the very first game when CSK sneaked past KKR. CSK who are now sitting atop the points table comfortably and are very much promised for one of the top 2 spots unless anything different happening on the final day of the league matches.

MSD and Parthiv(A former CSK) walked for the Toss which eventually was won by MSD and who without any hesitation chose to bat on a pitch which looked slow and two paced. Huss and Vijay walked onto the crease and as usual started slowly and when RP returned bowl the 3rd over vijay was in his usual mood slapping three straight fours until RP delivered a perfect yorker on the off stump which made vijay clueless and later stumpless . Then Raina came and gave his former teammate behind the stumps a welcome gift and parthiv rejected it much to the wrath of Sreesanth ,Then raina released his wrath in Sree’s next over scoring 16 runs in 3 balls before holing out the next delivery to mid on. Then the ever resilient Badri came and gave hodge some charge before holing out to RP in deep (yesterday’s offer for KTK : give boundaries get a wicket free). Then much to the surprise when everybody was expecting the wicket keeper batsmen to arrive at the crease he arrive but his name was different he was called as W.Saha who was taking care of the deep boundries as fielder in quite a few matches now and for the very first time this IPL came to face a delivery. Huss could not get a move on and Saha was very new to the crease and CSK’s score looked stand still for some overs before saha upped the ante by sweeping jaddu for a six and huss who was struggling gave up his wicket and stepped in Dhoni and he along with saha started increasing the run flow but dhoni nicked one to his counterpart and walked off then Albie came to infuse fire power but much to his like ball did not bounce much and saha carried on hitting at least a boundary of every over and an much needed six . they scored 21 runs of the last 2 overs with saha missing out on a well deserved 50 with CSK finishing at 152/5 setting up a reasonable total to fight it out.

KTK’s chase is on missing mahela this time around Parthiv opened with Mccullum and Ashwin opening the bowling this time. ashwin started up miserly and bollinger continued the same way and the stand in skipper parthiv gave his wicket the softest of ways and Mccullum tried everything dancing down the track, sweeping, steeping back, walking down the pitch but he could not get a move on particularly against ashwin who bowled 3 overs in his first spell. G.rao(V.rao’s) brother started to get a move on against jakathi before falling to bravo’s famous slower one.Mccullum and hodge rotated the strike and scoring the necessary boundary often and KTK for the very first time started to inflict pressure on CSK before jakathi made a copmeback cleaning up Mccullum. Then hodge realised it is already too late to get a move on and skied one towards Vijay who while holding on to the regulation catch was too complacent and dropped the catch making him look like an amateur on the field. Hodge later gave a final burst in the penultimate over from bravo’s and Vijay would have had a stinky stomach . Later Bollinger came onto finish the match with his trade mark last over and CSK yet again won @ home. KTK finished at 141/5 falling 11 runs short. The little known Saha was adjudged the MoM.

The story of CSK seems very simple in this tournament , They do not win by huge margins but they still win it by a considerable margin, they are to lose then, there should be rain or valthaty kind of innings on the ranks. They can now boast about having the best NRR in the tournament and they are the only team to qualify for the play off’s 4th time straight and they are the most consistent team of the tournament at home. To their credit yesterday’s MoM to saha was their seventh player this season to win the award in 9 matches with Huss winning it thrice (!Badri hasn’t won it yet!). They now have nearly 7 accomplished match winners.

First of all i am disgusted . I live in Chennai and because of work i could not see the match in the stadium and courtesy Newzealand I even missed the Live match in Television . The match was already over even before i started from office. me and my fellow colleagues were shell shocked as we were witnessing the fall of the wickets of the kiwis like 9 pins. Ok, lets get down to the game now.

The Kiwi’s at least won the toss! today and that’s all they can manage out of this series .The match was usual like the other matches of the series new zealand came into bat lost some early wickets and this time they lost pretty early and this time around their was no resistance to follow and kiwi batsmen were not walking but were running back to the pavilion as fast as they can and Franklin was their this time too but even he cannot save the kiwis from the ruins.the fell like nine pins with spinners in ashwin yuvi,& yusuf bagged 7 wickets between them with ashwin finishing with his career best figures of 3/24 in his home ground.This time around Kiwis can be so sure that nobody from men in blue would go on to hit a century.

Then came India to bat and Gambhir who had an memorable tournament as captain and as batsmen with two tons finished the series witha first over duck and another success story of the series Kohli fell cheaply with Parthiv and yuvi were taking the responsibility of taking India home to their whitewash on the black caps.Parthiv scored his second consecutive half century of the series in that many matches.

I dont even want to think how Vettori is feeling right now.
Let them atleast perform @ par with the Pakistanis.
Actually, 5-0 scoreline reminds me of a Manchester United match

This was not any consequential match of the series nor its result any important.India has won the series hands down and got nothing to lose and Nz who have lost 7 matches in a row and lost the series and to win this match would help them restore some pride.but, Boy!what a match it turned out to be especially for Monstrous Yusuf Pathan .

Gambhir won yet another toss and decided to bowl and the decision immediately backfired as guptill and McCullum fired their way through by scoring quick runs and then came Nehra to bowl his spell and immediately got two wickets bringing Nz to the mat and the kiwis were losing wickets @ frequent intervals and then came Franklin holding the kiwi innings and @ the finishing overs sent the Indian bowlers to all parts of the ground scoring a very brisk 97 and boosting the kiwi score to 317 to every body’s surprise.Nobody expected the kiwis to score past 300 but Franklin single-handedly took kiwi to a match winning score.

Then came Indian innings ,this time with different openers in Parthiv Patel and Skipper Gambhir and they gave a good start especially Parthiv who was dominating rather than Gambhir and gambhir departed and another star of the series Kohli stepped in and went out for a duck then came yuvi had a decent time with the bat. Parthiv went on to make his first 50 then he departed. Pathan and rohit shared a match saving partnership but rohit departed to poise the match evenly and to the regret of everyone rain interrupted the proceedings and India was in a spot of Bother courtesy D/L method and to everyone’s delight and match resumed without any adjustments in numbers and Pathan came back witha motive and bolstered the first delivery after rain for a six and S.Tiwary gave him a much needed partner to take India home and kiwi bowlers bowled beautifully in the batting powerplay with only 16 runs coming from 3 of the overs but mills one decisive over went on for 21 courtesy Pathan to swing the match in India’s favor and then a periodical six and four made the path easier for India and S.Tiwary scored a six to finish the victory in style .

This is India’s 5th consecutive Victory in recent times and Nz’s 8th consecutive loss.

The Vadodra odi was one more dead rubber in the India Vs Nz series. the summary is simple. Zaheer returns to the team takes a wicket in the very first over ,rest of the batsmen could not do much ,there was late resistance from lower order and Nz end with 224/9 from 50 overs, Gambhir & vijay give a solid start ,Vijay departs, Kohli comes in and scores yet another 50 and Gambhir scores 2nd consecutive ton and India finishes comfortably.

The first session of play when India won the toss and chose to bowl , the bowling was too impressive and proved too hot for kiwi batsmen to handle.Zaheer and Nehra were swinging both ways and was constantly troubling the umpires The fielding of the Indians were also surprisingly good and other bowlers chipped in and Franklin and Nathan Mccullum played an innings to restore some pride and it was not enough and they finished witha score of 224/9. Then came their bowling which was wayward and totally flat and even Vettori did not impress. Gambhir was fluent in his strokes and Vijay was pushing for singles and doubles and vijay went back after yet another good start then came Kohli and continued his form scoring yet another 50 and accompanied Gambhir through to the victory with Ga\mbhir scoring another Captains knock, his 2nd ton in a row and India won the match with 63 balls and 9 wickets to spare

Guwahati 1st odi,India Vs New zealand
It isn’t the most awaited Odi series or one of the closely contested series or does not have any impact on rankings or Big players playing but still it is an series involving India which is one of the strongest team in the world and NZ coming to the series with 4 consecutive loses against Bangladesh.Whoever the captain of India , losing the toss is almost inevitable,but India was put into bat by Taylor and the Indian openers immediately made Taylor to regret his decision. Vijay was it his best but his inexperience cost his wicket then came the Hero of the Day Virat Kohli .It was a well constructed innings with controlled aggression,his innings did not have too many boundaries but a lot of singles & doubles.After his fall then came the downfall, The other batsmen fell like domino’s with a light dazzle from Yusuf Pathan.Then came Nz to start it’s innings and the Bench strength of India showed it’s prowess with Nehra, ashwin and sreesanth firing at right time with part timer yuvraj performing above par. The performance of Yuvraj was exceptional as he performed with both bat and ball.then Indian bowlers ran through the Nz batting order until Nathan McCullum and Kyle mills springed surprise and nearly took the game away from India but Sreesanth came back and took 2 wickets of 2 balls to finish the match in style.India overall out played Nz in all departments.
“The six saved by Guptill needs a special mention here”